


The Last

by MrProphet



Category: Dungeons & Dragons - All Media Types
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-22
Updated: 2017-04-22
Packaged: 2018-10-22 13:51:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10698342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MrProphet/pseuds/MrProphet





	The Last

Everyone assumed that orcs just happened. On some level I suppose we knew that couldn't be; after all, fewer people had ever seen an orc woman than had met a dwarf woman. It was only during the Clearing of Shadows that we discovered the truth. 

A century after the Last Great War, the greatest army in human history assembled from the West, South and East, and pushed into the Land of Shadow. They moved slowly, clearing the ancient fastnesses of the Enemy of the orc and goblin hordes that still sallied out to raid the lands on their borders. Every cleft, every cavern, every tower was cleared, often at great cost, and step by step, mile by mile the forces of Darkness were pushed back.

This was not intended as a war of annihilation, and of a purpose a way was left open for the orcs to retreat; to flee into the desolation and scatter. They did not. They fell back to the chasms at the heart of the Shadow and fought almost to the last, and it was only in the aftermath that anyone knew why; that any human eye fell upon the black cauls from which the orcs were birthed. It was a foul abomination, and had clearly been dying since the fall of The Dark One. It would have been gone in a generation of men, but it had been all they had left.

No more than a hundred orcs survived the Clearing. They went out, lost and purposeless, knowing that their race was doomed. For a time they raided, but later they found a new and profitable role as mercenaries for the armies of men, and for more than a hundred years the Company of the Green Eye commanded fear and awe on the battlefields of the nine kingdoms. Even after, when their numbers were too few to support a company, to have an orc beneath your banner was seen as a good guarantee of victory.

It is hard to trace the point at which we began to recognise individuals. Certainly, the histories of man record only two dozen names among the company, and only a handful with any regularity or real recognition. Of these, the most famous was Grishnak the Grey One, whose name and deeds were spoken of so much more highly  
than any other orc that it was only eight years after the death of Sharkil Every-Hungry that it really registered that Grishnak was the only one left.

Ever since then, a kind of romance has grown up around the Grey One. One day, perhaps soon, he will be gone, and with him the most terrible breed of warriors ever to walk the earth; a race bred only for war. some fear that without his presence in the armies of the nine kings, our enemies will see us as weak, but can such a symbol of bloodshed ever be a guarantor of peace.

It has been almost three centuries since the Last Great War. Three centuries since the Dark One fell and the elves retreated from the land; two centuries since the dwarfs vanished into the deepest mines. When the elves went, some felt that we lost our highest art. With the departure of the dwarfs, the pinnacle of craftsmanship had passed. Soon, the last orc will fall, and it will be for men alone to make the future. Will Grishnak take with him the spirit of violence when he goes?

We can but hope.


End file.
